WORKSPACE
WeWork sues SoftBank over scuttled stock deal
WeWork has filed a lawsuit against SoftBank Group Corp., its biggest shareholder, after the Japanese investor scrapped a $3 billion agreement to buy stock from former chief executive Adam Neumann and other shareholders. SoftBank breached contractual obligations and fiduciary duty by failing to complete the deal, WeWork said in a statement on Tuesday. SoftBank had agreed to buy the shares from Neumann, Benchmark Capital, and others as part of a bailout package last year, but it notified stockholders in mid-March that conditions for the deal hadn’t been met. On Thursday, after the deal’s deadline passed, SoftBank confirmed it would end the offer, citing five conditions that were not satisfied by the closing date. — Bloomberg News
AUTOMOTIVE
Honda and Nissan to furlough workers at idled plants
Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. will temporarily stop paying workers laid off from their idled US plants as the coronavirus stifles demand for cars and trucks. The two Japanese companies on Tuesday joined unionized Detroit peers in urging furloughed workers to apply for unemployment benefits from state governments. After shutting down their non-union manufacturing operations last month, Honda initially continued to pay workers their full wages while Nissan provided about 80 percent. It isn’t clear how much of a cut from their regular pay Honda and Nissan workers will see. Unionized employees of General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV receive state unemployment and supplemental benefits that make up about 75 percent of their pay, based on collective-bargaining agreements. Furloughed workers at all 10 of Honda’s US factories won’t receive wages from April 13 to May 1, making them eligible to get unemployment benefits from local authorities, said Teruhiko Tatebe, a Honda spokesman. — Bloomberg News
RETAIL
Amid pandemic meltdown, Macy’s loses its CFO
Macy’s Inc., in the middle of navigating a broad US shutdown of nonessential businesses, said chief financial officer Paula Price is leaving her role. Price, who has been in the position for less than two years, “has made the decision to leave the company as of May 31,” the department store operator said in a statement. She will remain an adviser through November, and the company is searching for her replacement. Her departure comes amid a massive retail shutdown, part of unprecedented measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Macy’s has furloughed most of its more than 100,000 workers starting this month in a bid to preserve cash as the closure of all 775 of its physical stores has caused a sharp decline in revenue. — Bloomberg News
SMALL BUSINESS
Confidence at a record low
Sentiment among US small businesses collapsed in March by the most on record and owners’ outlooks deteriorated swiftly amid the economic disruptions caused by the global health crisis. The National Federation of Independent Business optimism index slumped 8.1 points to 96.4, the group said in a report issued Tuesday, the biggest drop in monthly surveys going back to 1986. The group’s measure of business conditions six months from now declined 17 points, the most since November 2012, to 5. Nine of the 10 components that make up the optimism gauge declined in March. Pessimism reflected the largest-ever decrease in sales expectations. The federation’s uncertainty index increased to a three-year high. —Bloomberg News
Pharmaceuticals
British giants team up with University to improve coronavirus testing
AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, the UK’s two pharmaceutical giants, will collaborate with the University of Cambridge to develop technology to test more of the country’s residents for the deadly coronavirus. The group will begin working at the university’s Anne McLaren laboratory on developing high-throughput screening, according to a statement. One of the key goals is to find tests using alternatives to chemicals that are now in short supply. Ramping up testing is seen as a critical step in understanding how widespread the virus is, and whether people who have recovered from Covid-19 can resume working without risk of transmitting it. The stealthy virus is able to be spread by people who haven’t yet developed symptoms, or won’t at all. — Bloomberg News
ARTS AND CRAFTS
Etsy to its crafters: start making masks
Etsy crafts never seemed like essential goods. But on Friday, the same day the White House announced guidelines that Americans should wear masks outside of the home, Etsy Inc. sent a push notification to every craftsperson on its website in the United States: ‘‘Calling all sellers,’’ it said. ‘‘Start making face masks.’’ The website is becoming a go-to destination for homemade cloth masks. Etsy said there was an average of one mask-related search on the site every two seconds in March. Last week, more than 10,000 sellers sold at least one mask apiece. Unlike the medical-grade equipment now in woefully short supply at US hospitals, cloth masks can be quickly constructed by anyone with a sewing machine and some elastic. That means the skillsets of legions of Etsy crafters are suddenly in very high demand. — Bloomberg News
RETAIL
Pier 1 Imports could be forced to close all but about 100 stores
Pier 1 Imports Inc. is expected to receive a revised purchase offer in bankruptcy that would keep open fewer than 100 of the company’s 900-plus locations, according to people with knowledge of the developments. The bid, from a company called CSC Generation, comes after the retailer’s bankruptcy court process was paused while stores were shuttered in accordance with coronavirus containment measures. Pier 1 sought court protection in February with plans to shut about half of its stores and said it was in talks with multiple potential buyers. The Fort Worth, Texas-based company had posted multiple quarters of declining sales and losses amid a raft of new competitors such as Wayfair Inc. —Bloomberg News